It was nearly sunset by the time the gentlemen had finished, when the Judge proposed to visit a piece of wood he was clearing at no great distance from the house. Armstrong acquiesced, and they started off, Mrs. Perkins saying, she should expect them to stop to tea. Their route lay through some woods and in the direction of the Wootuppocut, on whose banks the clearing was being made. As they approached, they could hear, more and more distinctly, the measured strokes of an axe, followed soon by the crash of a falling tree. Then, as they came still nearer, a rustling could be distinguished among the leaves and the sound of the cutting off of limbs. And now they heard the bark of a dog, and a man's voice ordering him to stop his noise. "Keep still, Tige!" said the voice. "What's the use of making such a racket? I can't hear myself think. I say stop your noise! shut up!" "It is Tom Gladding, whom Perkins hired to make the clearing, one of the best wood-choppers in the country. It is wonderful with what dexterity he wields an axe." As the Judge uttered these words, the two gentlemen emerged from the wood into the open space, denuded of its sylvan honors, by the labors of Gladding. The clearing (as it is technically termed), was perhaps a couple of acres in extent, in the form of a circle, and surrounded on all sides by trees, only a narrow strip of them, however, being left on the margin of the river, glimpses of which were caught under the branches and the thin undergrowth. A brook which came out of the wood, ran, glistening in the beams of the setting sun, and singing on its way across the opening to fall into the Wootuppocut. The felled trees had been mostly cut into pieces of from two to four feet in length, and collected into piles which looked like so many altars scattered over the ground. Here it was intended they should remain to dry, during the summer, to be ready for a market in the fall. "So it's you, Judge and Mr. Armstrong," exclaimed Gladding as the two came up. "I guessed as much, that somebody was coming, when I heard Tige bark. He makes a different sort of a noise when he gits on the scent of a rabbit or squirrel." "I dare say, Tiger knows a great deal more than we fancy," said the Judge. "Why, Gladding you come on bravely. I had no idea you had made such destruction." "When I once put my hand to the work," said Tom, laughing, "down they must come, in short metre, if they're bigger than Goliah. Me and my axe are old friends, and we've got the hang of one another pretty well. All I have to do, is to say, 'go it,' and every tree's a goner." After this little bit of vanity, Tom, as if to prove his ability to make good his boast by deeds, with a few well-directed blows, that seemed to be made without effort, lopped off an enormous limb from the tree he had just cut down.